Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to communication systems and more particularly to providing carrier-independent VoIP communication.
Conventionally, peer-to-peer calling services exist (e.g., Skype and voice chat services). However, these services require a caller to select, prior to a call, to place the call over the peer-to-peer calling service. As such the caller must proactively instruct the system to place the call via a designated calling service.
A further disadvantage is that the caller must have knowledge that the call recipient also participates in the same calling service in order to use the calling service. Often times, the caller will not know whether this is the case. Additionally, if the call recipient is not using the same calling service, the peer-to-peer call service may not be available. If the caller decides to use a PSTN connection to place a call, or if their Internet connection is not of sufficient quality to place the call using peer-to-peer, the user must use a different device (e.g., standard telephone, other softphone software, etc) to place the call. Another disadvantage is that both parties must use phone numbers (or addresses) issued by their peer-to-peer carrier, and are not able to use standard phone numbers to reach each other over the free calling service.